Monday, October 19, 2015

Jacky Sutton's questionable death

We
at the Institute for War & Peace Reporting are devastated to
announce the death of our country director in Iraq, Jacky Sutton.Jacky, who was 50, was found dead at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport on
October 17. She had flown from London to take an onward flight to her
base in Erbil in the Kurdish Region of Iraq.The circumstances of her death are unclear, and we are trying to establish the facts.Jacky was appointed IWPR’s acting country director in Iraq at the end
of June. She replaced Ammar Al Shahbander, who was killed in a car bomb
attack on May 2. She had been in London to join Ammar’s family, friends
and colleagues at a memorial service held for him at St Bride’s Church
in Fleet Street last week.“Jacky was one of the top development professionals working on Iraq,
and she devoted nearly ten years of her life to helping the country,”
said Anthony Borden, Executive Director of the Institute for War &
Peace Reporting. “She was extremely bright, highly competent, and well
able to handle herself in difficult environments, and she was
universally loved. We are in total shock.”Jacky Sutton was a veteran journalist and media development expert,
and worked closely with IWPR long before joining us. She spent two years
at the BBC World Service in 1998-2000, reporting from Africa and the
Middle East as well as in London. She went on to serve with the United
Nations in numerous senior roles that took her from Afghanistan and Iran
to West Africa and Gaza, and in 2008, Iraq. After running a media and
elections project for UNDP in Baghdad, she became country director for
IREX and then a consultant for the International Foundation for
Electoral Systems in Baghdad.Jacky earned multiple advanced academic qualifications including in
constitutional law and international development, all of which brought
intellectual rigour and a broad vision to her professional roles. Her
LLM, for example, focused on Iraq’s regulatory framework for media and
telecoms and its impact on freedom of expression. Most recently, she was
working on a PhD on the position of female journalists in Iraq and
Afghanistan, studying at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the
Australian National University in Canberra.Jacky was returning to Iraq full of plans for innovative new work,
including projects to counter violent extremism that threatens a country
to which she was so committed. Our condolences go out to her family and
all those who knew her.

Alexandra Topping and Constanze Letsch (Guardian) report, "Former BBC
journalist Jacky Sutton, 50, is understood to have been found dead in a
toilet at the city’s main airport. The circumstances of her death are
as yet unknown. Local media reported that it appeared that Sutton, who
is believed to have been travelling to Irbil, northern Iraq had killed
herself after missing a flight connection, a claim colleagues said was
unlikely."

Friend and ANU colleague Susan Hutchinson told the ABC she was in
"complete shock" over Ms Sutton's death, and had trouble believing her
friend took her life."I am unconvinced that she would have
committed suicide ... I am sceptical of the idea. I absolutely think
that there needs to be a full investigation," she said."I hope
that the (UK) Foreign Office has full access in order to be able to
conduct a proper investigation about the circumstances in which Jacky
died and I hope that that is done internationally and in a transparent
and cooperative way."

David Barrett (Telegraph of London) adds: Christian Bleuer, a research fellow at the Australian National
University who knew her well, tweeted: "Toughest woman u could meet.
Turkish police say she committed suicide cuz she missed her flight?"

About Me

We do not open attachments. Stop e-mailing them. Threats and abusive e-mail are not covered by any privacy rule. This isn't to the reporters at a certain paper (keep 'em coming, they are funny). This is for the likes of failed comics who think they can threaten via e-mails and then whine, "E-mails are supposed to be private." E-mail threats will be turned over to the FBI and they will be noted here with the names and anything I feel like quoting.
This also applies to anyone writing to complain about a friend of mine. That's not why the public account exists.